Labour market will take ‘years to recover’

THE labour market will take “years to recover” and the Government will have to do much more if it is to tackle the crisis, an advisory group to the Taoiseach has warned.

In a report which was published yesterday, the National Economic and Social Council said it was clear that the response to the crisis since it erupted in 2008 has been “wholly insufficient”.

As a result, even though the Fine Gael/Labour coalition has taken action, “further, more bold and imaginative responses must still be undertaken”.

The report, entitled “Supports and Services for Unemployed Jobseekers”, paints a gloomy picture of the unemployment crisis and the length of time it will endure.

It indicates the problem is worse than official figures suggest because “significant groups do not appear on the Live Register”, such as self-employed people whose businesses have collapsed and who may not be entitled to support.

“Ireland’s labour market will take years to recover from the massive contraction that has occurred in the economy,” the report states.

“Only emigration and labour market withdrawal appear to have had significant roles in containing the rise in unemployment, while nothing has been able to stop the share of it that is long-term growing inexorably.

“Whatever the actual impacts of the many and diverse responses taken to the labour market crisis to date, two conclusions must be drawn. One: their cumulative impact has been wholly insufficient, and two: further, more bold and imaginative responses must still be undertaken.”

As an example, the council draws attention to the National Internship Programme announced by the Government in May’s Jobs Initiative.

It says that while the programme has “several features that should boost its success”, the 5,000 placements it will provide for jobseekers will not be enough.

The programme “should be expanded with greater imagination and urgency”, the council states in the document.

“The labour market crisis is already more than three years old and the unemployment figures will be little dented when the programme reaches its current 5,000-capacity.

“A major ‘bailing in’ by private sector employers and the conceptualisation of internships in imaginative ways — harnessing some of them, for example, to remedy the exceptionally weak language skills of Ireland’s graduates — will be important if the programme is to achieve the scale that its potential and, above all, the needs of the unemployed require.”

The report also calls for enhanced “activation” measures to help people off social welfare and back to work.

Welfare “must serve as a trampoline and not hold people back”, it states.